Honduras special forces HH-3 Night Owl.

[chrisonord]

In the ever growing struggle against Drug cartels and their infiltration of the Nicaraguan border. The Honduras Army special forces needed a helicopter that could carry a full fighting squad of troops and their equipment, and also be used as a armed combat search and rescue helo if needed. The helicopter needed to be of an existing airframe with good parts availability, ease of service and be of a proven and reliable design.
The airframe chosen was the Sikorsky   HH-3 Pelican/Jolly Green Giant.
The helicopters were ex Italian army helicopters that had been put into storage pending their future use. An Italian private contractor who has worked on upgrades and conversion of these helicopters was awarded the contract to make the necessary upgrades to the helicopters.
The work carried out on the helicopters included quite substantial upgrades of the avionics, engines,rotor blades landing gear and weapons load out.
A terrain following radar was installed IR/thermal Targeting sight from an AH-6 was also fitted along with a FLIR ball. New rotor blades were sourced from Sikorsky in the form of the type used on the S-70 range of Helicopters. The addition of forward firing cannon and heavy machine guns complimented by unguided rocket pods. These weapons are mounted to added stub wings well forward of the landing gear sponsons, and are capable of carrying various mission specific ordnance.
The upgraded engines have been given Infa red suppression boxes and a dust/sand filter over the intake, these additions to the engine also help to quieten the helicopter down considerably. This is of great advantage as the helicopters would be used primarily at night.

The Kit is the very brilliant Starfix HH-3 Jolly Green Giant, in 1/72nd scale. And, if you think the pilots in their Alpha jets look bad, the ones in this thing look like they belong in the film Spaceballs!
The kit as a whole went together pretty ok really, the only really bad part was the fact that there is no opening rear ramp, so I had to cut the back out and make a ramp up out of styrene card and what I think is a floor panel from an AFV of some sorts.
I stuck the nose sight from an italeri AH-6 on the front left of the nose and a cut down bomb reshaped to fit on the opposite side, and made a FLIR turret and ball and stuck that in front of the nose wheels.
The new stub wings came off a dead ACH-47 and I put a 20mm cannon on one and a 50 cal on the other and 2 small rocket pods will reside underneath. The IR suppressors were sourced from a dead mil Hind, and the dust filter box is a modified intake cover from a seaking, with the sides blanked off and a photo etch grill put on the front.
I will try and get some pics of this tomorrow as it looks so far, very little as regards to markings will be used, and its colouration is mainly matt black, with some olive drab and it may have some black green and dark grey in there also.
thats yerlot fer now, and I will try and do some pics tomorrow.
Cheers,
Chris.     

[ChernayaAkula]

Can't wait for the pics, as the backstory and "specifications" of the revamped HH-3 sound great.

[chrisonord]

Here are some pics of the HH-3 as of today, I should get it finished by this evening.







Cheers,
Chris.

[Weaver]

That looks damn cool, and very credible too! 

[ChernayaAkula]

  Cool! 

[chrisonord]

Right then, this thing has hit a bit of a problem, the glass ware, well some of it doesn't fit properly and there are dirty great gaps that need filling somehow.I think I will have to take the glass back out and cut some thin styrene to fit the gaps, some of the other gaps are an awkward shape so I will probably use some miliput on them, as I can use the glass to get the right shape without covering it in putty/filler.
Darn it!!
Chris.

[Sauragnmon]

She does look rather interesting, Chris, if tamer than your Taipan.  She looks good so far, nice camo job.

[chrisonord]

This thing has really disappointed me now, as the whole gap in the windows thing, and some cracks in the main glass parts that were there when I got the kit. I am considering polishing the things as much as I can to try and get rid of some of the imperfections, and paint them transparent green, or transparent red. The tail ramp is now installed and the cables to lift/lower it are in.The only other thing to do is some repainting of the guns, and put the rockets on. Then its time for the 2 decals it will be wearing and some weathering. There is another thing that had to be changed also, the mounting for one of the pintle guns, that was glued inside decided to come off so it is now mounted outside, I may take the other one out and glue that on the outside.
Cheers,

[chrisonord]

Well I finished this thing last night at last, and I was an hour and a half before the original (standing ??) deadline.
No pictures as I have been out all day today, but I will try to get some done tomorrow. I painted the windows clear red, and if I say so myself.
I have only put 2 decals on this thing, and put some black green in the scheme of things also.But I am still not 100% with it but there you go, thats modelling for you.
So officially its a done deal.
Cheers,
Chris.

[chrisonord]

Here is the finished pics of the HH-3, I lost enthusiasm for this thing when the windows started causing problems, so it could have looked better than this as I just wanted it done and out of the way.





Cheers,
Chris.

[Weaver]

Well it looks pretty cool to me, Chris! 

You really should do a spares box built and put that "recycle for Chorley" logo on it as a roundel....

[Sauragnmon]

Your camera seems to be behaving better definately - I love the details you added, and the behaving focus on it actually shows better on the camo too.

[Taiidantomcat]

The Camo is excellent and along with the red windows it really gives the impression of "night operations" Excellent job 

[chrisonord]

Thanks for the positive comments gentlemen, I feel a lot more positive about my builds now, plus my camera is good at lying 
Cheers,
Chris.

[Captain Canada]

I was googling pics for a build and this popped up ! Don't you love it when you find whiff's you missed !

Great job, very sinister looking. I like the upgrades you have put in as well.